


Lambert & Butler

by copperbadge



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Smoking, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-29
Updated: 2008-02-29
Packaged: 2017-12-12 13:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, when coffee, alcohol, and sex fail us...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lambert & Butler

**Author's Note:**

> This was in my head, but probably would never have been written down if not for **[this macro](http://community.livejournal.com/ihazastopwatch/49600.html?mode=reply)** popping up in ihazastopwatch.

After Owen spent three days sulking about being dead -- which was comfortably mythic for a good Anglican choirboy from Wales -- Ianto decided that this was simply not on anymore.

For one, he was not entirely alongside usurping Owen's position on the team. For another, Owen was likely to take out his frustrations on his erstwhile replacement. Rubbing Owen's nose in his past abuses was all well and good, but Jack took it too far when he made Owen make the coffee. It punished everyone, after all. Someone had to have some mercy on him, and since kindness hadn't worked, he might as well try being unorthodox.

So, monitoring Owen on the CCTV feed that went to his Information Centre computer, he took action.
    
    
    Ianto: Owen.
    Owen: What
    Ianto: May I speak with you?
    Owen: No
    Ianto: Alone?
    Owen: No
    Ianto: I need to speak with you.
    Owen: NO. 

Owen stepped back from the computer and wandered across the medical bay, but this was expected.
    
    
    Ianto: I have something to show you.

He took out the stopwatch -- ever at the ready -- and clicked the button. It took Owen six forty-two by the watch to come back to the computer. If there was one thing you could depend on, it was Owen to be an arsehole but succumb to curiousity in the end.
    
    
    Owen: Is this going to be kinky? Because it's going to be very disappointing for you if it was.
    Ianto: No! What is wrong with you?
    Owen: Just asking.

Ianto took a deep breath. He would not bring up the Tintin Incident.
    
    
    Ianto: Come up. Take the scenic route. It won't take long. Ten minutes, tops.
    Owen: You and tops. 
    Owen: Why should I?
    Ianto: Because if you don't, you'll always wonder.
    Owen: Bullshit
    Ianto: Don't come up, then. 

He reset the stopwatch and started it again. This time Owen didn't bother responding, but it only took him three minutes five seconds to make up his mind. When Ianto saw him step onto the stone in the centre of the Hub, he hung the closed sign on the outside door of the Information Centre and walked across the Plass, waiting hands-in-pockets for the faint scrape of pavement which was all that made it through the perception filter. Owen stepped into existence, expectant, annoyed. 

"Funny thing," Ianto said casually. "If a person were to, say, kick that CCTV pole gently, the camera might swing slightly. Hardly noticeable. Just enough to create a blind space around the perception filter."

Owen looked almost...nervous now. Ianto smiled his best disarming smile and took a small box out of his pocket, tossing it the five or six feet between them. Owen caught it automatically, studying it, perplexed. 

"Lambert and Butler brand," Ianto said. "Seemed appropriate."

"What the hell am I supposed to do with these?" Owen asked. 

"Well, when coffee, alcohol, and sex fails us..." Ianto said, seating himself on the stone and taking out a small silver lighter. It was quite plain; Lisa had always meant to get it monogrammed for him. 

"I can't breathe, you great prick," Owen said, dropping the cigarettes in his lap. Ianto tore the cellophane off the top and popped it open, removing the foil and taking one out. He tapped it on the pack, almost thoughtfully, and far more expertly than Owen probably expected. Owen, shaking his head, sat down next to him.

"Do you need a doctor to tell you that's going to kill you?" he asked.

"Not this individual cigarette," he said, putting it between his lips. He took out a second, tapped it, and added it next to the first. "You might not be breathing, but you can talk, which suggests you can at least move the air around."

"I'm going inside -- "

"Door's locked, and I'm sitting on your other entry. Besides, either you take it," he said, lighting both and suppressing the cough that followed, "or I sit here and smoke them." He took one out of his mouth and smiled, offering it filter-first to Owen. "Twice as bad for me; not like it's going to kill _you_."

"Is this supposed to prove something?" Owen asked, propping the cigarette between his lips.

"Not precisely." Ianto inhaled, exhaled, tapped the filter and watched a fleck of ash go flying. "I quit two months before Canary Wharf."

"You're smoking. You haven't quit."

"I'm doing a friend a favour."

"Oh, spare me."

Ianto shrugged. "Pay a little attention. Use some of that focus. Inhale."

Owen cautiously tensed the muscles in his throat. The tip of the cigarette flared. He looked at Ianto and there was a bare moment of panic in his eyes. Ianto put his hand out and tapped Owen's ribcage firmly. The smoke came out in a huff, and he barely saved the cigarette from falling. 

"It's not going to hurt your lungs, because they're not absorbing anything," Ianto continued. "And if you can control your autonomic responses, eventually you might be able to digest things. And even if you can't -- at least it's five minutes spent away from the Hub. Something to do with your hands."

"Someone ought to tell you," Owen said, grinning. "Smoking Kills."

Ianto snorted. "We ought to get a motto like that. _Torchwood Kills. But you might have fun anyway._ "

He was gratified when Owen laughed. The other man rested his forehead against the heel of his hand, elbow propped on his knees, cigarette dangling. 

"It's so completely unfair," he said, after a while.

"What's that?" Ianto asked, feeling the head-swimming sensation that the first cigarette of the day used to give him. 

"I'm dead. And the only pleasure I have left is a smoke." Owen tapped the filter with his finger. "The one sin I never indulged in...before."

Ianto nodded contemplatively. "Irony gets us all in the end."

"If I catch you smoking again, mind, I'll do their job for them."

"No fear. Pack's yours," Ianto said, tipping it into Owen's lap. He held out the lighter. 

"That's not cheap," Owen said, looking at him.

"No. It's not. But I haven't much use for it anymore."

Owen lifted it out of his fingers cautiously. "Cheers, Ianto."

"Mmh." Ianto took one last brilliant drag and regretfully stubbed it out on the pavement, carefully tossing it into the trash bin nearby. "Make sure you air out a bit before you go back down to the Hub. God knows what Jack would say."

Owen put his cigarette out and stood up, tucking the pack into a back pocket. Ianto looked pointedly at the butt lying on the pavement. 

Owen rolled his eyes, picked it up, and tossed it in the bin. Ianto nodded approvingly and walked back towards the narrow stairs leading down to the Information Centre's door, leaving Owen standing on the Plass, looking contemplatively at the lighter in his hand.
    
    
    Jack: What are you and Owen doing up there? I couldn't find either of you on the CCTV.
    Ianto: I think it's been misaligned, sir. I'll call the city about fixing it. 
    Jack: Then it'll never get fixed.
    Ianto: I'm sure they'll get round to it sooner or later.
    Jack: Is Owen up there with you?
    Ianto: He's having a bit of a meditation outside.
    Jack: And what is he meditating on?
    Ianto: Jealous, sir?
    Jack: Ianto.
    
    [Ianto is typing]
    
    Jack: Ianto!
    Ianto: The mystic secrets of tea-boys are not for the eyes of outsiders, Captain. I'd leave him be if I were you.
    Jack: These mystic secrets. Do they involve tongues or inappropriate hands?
    Ianto: Perish the thought. Let him alone, Jack.
    
    [Jack is typing]
    
    [Ianto has left the conversation.]
    
    Jack: Mystic secrets of tea-boys, my sculpted ass.


End file.
